Turnout in Haltemprice and Howden was a measly 34 per cent, less than half of what it was at the general election.

No doubt DD’s apologists will claim that this is all the Labour Party’s fault for not standing a candidate (shame on us for not jumping when DD clicks his fingers!). But no amount of spin or argument can disguise the fact that the Haltemprice and Howden by-election has been a colossal waste of time, effort and money.

More importantly, it has had not the slightest impact on public support for (or opposition to) the policy of 42 days detention.

I disagree with you, Tom. As a liberal I’m deeply concerned about the erosion of our civil liberties.

1. The the government’s own Information officer has warned that we are sleep walking into a surveillance society.

2. UK is blacklisted by Privacy international – have a look at their map of unwarranted government intrusion into citizens’ lives, we are in the black (worst) category along with CHINA & RUSSIA and several other abusers of human rights.

I am so ashamed about that. For God’s sake, Tom, there’s a reasonable bloke inside that nulab control freak exterior of yours, you’re even reasonable enough to allow smokers a break. This must worry you. It sure as h*ll worries the daylights out of me.

3. UK has less than 1% of the world’s population yet 20% of the world’s surveillance.

4. Your government is finger printing innocent school children.

5. Don’t get me started on ID cards, it raises my blood pressure. I’ll going to prison before I EVER carry one of those. I’m a free person, not a number, not Brown’s work and tax fodder, not a creature of your government.

I could give you a list as long as your arm of your government’s sinister (yes, sinister) erosion of our civil liberties if I wasn’t near the end of my break.

Do you not see that the message underlying all of these authoritarian measures is that our government doesn’t trust us lot outside the political bubble? That our government believes human nature is fundamentally rotten and that us lot out here are mostly social miscreants or criminals in the making?

I applaud David Davis for making his stand to highlight the 42 days and other crucial civil liberties issues, Tom. I never used to like him, but I do now. I back him all the way – and see this result as a vindication of his views.

Martin – there is a difference, in the 2005 election there were other parties that some would have thought worth voting for. This was declared as a single issue byelection therefore anyone not turning out to vote for the cause can safely be assumed to be against the issue or indifferent to it…

Brian, yes you’re right, and in 2005, 78% of the electorate, whether they voted or not, decided to vote against Labour by your logic.

Try to spin a positive out of this as much as you like but Labour have a Government only favoured by less than 22% of the people because, as you say, all of those not voting at all quite obviously can safely be assumed to be against Labour’s policies or indifferent to them.

Remember this was supposed to be the by-election like no other – where people would be invited to register their disapproval with CCTV, DNA and the detention of terrorist subjects irrespective of their normal political persuasion by voting for David Davis.

So after weeks of this single issue campaign 76% of the voters in Haltemprice & Howden do not vote for this. On the day the Commons passed the 42 days it was reported that public support for the measure stood at 73%.

David seems to have created a small swing in favour of the thing he was campaigning against!

More Labour dodgy stats. Do you do any other tricks? Juggling clubs or something?

No-one believes Labour spin anymore, haven’t you lot realised yet? We hear such a percentage love this and that, but then we talk to everyone around us and know it’s rubbish.

The clever ploy of massaging statistics and not talking to real people, but instead consulting carefully selected ‘Stakeholders’ to confirm a pre-determined Labour policy, just doesn’t cut it anymore. It also has the effect of creating some form of comfort in Labour sympathisers which is entirely out of step with how voters actually view the country. You may have noticed you are suffering a bit in elections recently?

76% did NOT disagree with DD, and well you know it. There are a multitude of reasons why people may not have voted, but in the wibbly wobbly world of Labour bent stats, they were all wagging their finger and signalling disapproval.

For crying out loud, grow up and stop treating us all like fools. You may then have a chance of being in charge again in another 18 years 😉

Seriously, this Labour [yes, LABOUR as Kinnockio might have said] is pretty adept at shoving amounts in the millions, if not billions, down the khasi every month – so worrying about the election expenses of David Davis [and, if we’re honest, MPs expenses] is pretty small beer in comparison..

come on, harris, you can do much better than this – i thought you’d all chucked your ‘pagers’ away years ago and could think for yourselves a bit – or have you been reined in after your miserable bstards posting ?? The truth must be told..

Auntie Flo’, I share your anger about the contempt with which the British public are held: assumed to be criminals until proven innocent.

You say of Mr Harris: “there’s a reasonable bloke inside that nulab control freak exterior of yours, you’re even reasonable enough to allow smokers a break. This must worry you. It sure as h*ll worries the daylights out of me.”

I have met two Labour MPs (had lunch in the Commons canteen with one) and one MSP. They are hardworking and in most ways, ordinary people, BUT something happens that alters their personas.

They find themselves part of a large and possibly frightening machine: mere cogs that have little or no manoeuvrability inside the great party engine and within the formalities of Parliament.

I suppose it is fair to say that they sell their souls. The MPs I referred to would reply to my queries about my personal problems (unimportant in the great scheme of things), but I wrote letters to both on important moral issues and asked them to vote with their conscience and gut instincts, but neither replied and voted opposite to my requests.

Politicians have done great damage to Britain for a few decades now, although most of them don’t have real power; they mainly follow orders.

But whose?

Consider this. Its existence used to be considered a conspiracy theory, even recently, but now it is admitted by mainstream media, by some attendees and questions have been raised in Parliament.

It is where the ‘elite’ meet: bankers, industrialists, royalty, etc. Some politicians are members and others are invited to attend.

It is called the Bilderberg Group.

They would appear to groom politicians who they want to follow their plans to, among other things, end the notion of national sovereignty in order to create a one world government; actually a slave society full of control and surveillance mechanisms.

Tony Blair attended the 1993 Bilderberg conference and a year later became Labour leader and a rapid rise to power to become Prime Minister in 1997.

Gordon Brown was at Bilderberg when shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1991.

How many people even know such a group exists? These ‘elite’ industrialists, bankers and neocons like Paul Wolfowitz, Henry Kissinger, David Rockefeller, Queen Beatrix (Dutch Royal Shell) and many others are shaping the world – in secret – where the mainstream media are not even invited.

Ed Balls was there in 2006, so I expect promotion for him if the globalists presume he will further their aims of betraying his country in favour of, firstly an EU superstate, then a World slave state.

Do you wonder where the real decision came from to deprive the British people of the promised referendum on the EU Treaty?

They knew we would vote a resounding ‘NO’ so we were denied this important say on our country’s future.

So what I am saying is that, however nice an MP might appear, he or she is part of a much larger apparatus where critical, independent thinking is practically outlawed in favour of adherence (either reluctantly or with blind faith) to the Party’s line, which is actually the globalists’ line.

Tory Kenneth Clarke is also a major Bilderberger.

The agenda is to give the people a false left-right paradigm: the illusion that we have a choice in how the country is governed when it is the global elite and their media who manipulate everything.

The humble workaholic MPs may try their best to sort out constituents’ problems with their benefits and council house repairs, but as I have found, don’t ask them to examine their conscience for the really important issues because they don’t want to be the cog that comes loose and threatens to make the machinery grind to a halt, despite the fact that the country would be far better off if they did.

At least it would give everyone time to think and discuss matters before diving headlong into oblivion.

David Davis became a wayward cog over liberties, which may have damaged the whole Tory machinery or else made it and the country stronger by forcing proper debate and hopefully change, because who wants an out-of-control, highly oiled and efficient killing machine, whether Labour, Tory or the other controlled parties, pile driving our country further into the already voluminous amoral, spiritually bereft, dangerous, unjust cesspit?

Via Taking Liberties: Little commented upon in this byelection is the fact that there was not only a pro-smoking candidate (Hamish Howitt) but also an anti-smoking candidate (Tony Farnon). This provides, perhaps for the first time ever, a real electoral measure of the strength of the two camps (as opposed to any figures generated by anti-smoking organisations like ASH).

So how did they compare in the contest? Well, Howitt got 91 votes and came 13th out of the 26 candidates, and Farnon got 8 votes and came joint last. That means that the only real measure of the relative strength shows that there are over 11 times as many pro-smokers who will put their cross on the ballot paper than there are anti-smokers.